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The Leicester Galleries Ltd
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WILLIAM MULREADY R.A. (1786-1863)
Victorian School, UK
Collection of 25 drawings & 9 etchings for 'The Vicar of Wakefield'
( England
c. 1840
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Medium
pencil, ink and etching on paper
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Signed/Inscribed/Dated
Two sheets autographed 'MS'; the collection is accompanied by three loose pages handwritten by the artist, signed with monogram 'W.M.' and dated 'March 1. 1840'
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Literature:
Oliver Goldsmith, The Vicar of Wakefield, London 1844
Kathryn Moore Heleniak, William Mulready, Yale University Press 1980
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Description / Expertise
‘The Vicar of Wakefield’, first published in 1766, was extremely popular with the English reading public. Sir Walter Scott’s appreciation of the book was shared by many: ‘We read [it] in youth and in age, we return to it again and again, and bless the memory of an author who contrives so well to reconcile us to human nature … the wreath of Goldsmith is unsullied; he wrote to exalt virtue and expose vice.’
The Victorian reader agreed with this pious assessment and the novel was reissued repeatedly throughout the nineteenth century. In 1840 Mulready was commissioned to illustrate the book and produced 32 drawings, one for each chapter head. The etchings were conceived by John Thompson who was one of the best wood-engraver in England. This was the most extensively illustrated version to date, following earlier editions illustrated by Daniel Dodd (1780), Thomas Stothard (17920, Thomas Uwins (1812), Thomas Rowlandson (1817) and George Cruikshank (1830, 1832). Only the volume illustrated by Rowlandson with twenty-four aquatints approached Mulread’s in sheer quantity of illustration. Mulready’s drawings with its simplicity and homely feeling were well suited to Goldsmith’s style and were warmly received by the public and press. It maintained its popularity into the twentieth century and was reissued twice by Van Voorst (1848, 1855) and several more times by other publishers in London, Boston, and New York.
Mulready translated three of his illustrations into oils for exhibition (one currently at the V&A); two additional designs reached the stage of oil sketches.
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